Officials inspect 25-acre area in Borivli after allegations of mangrove destruction

MUMBAI: Following allegations that constructions carried out by a private builder led to the destruction of a 25-acre stretch of mangroves, officials from the revenue, forest and police department inspected the area in Borivli on Tuesday 17th March 2015.

N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forests, mangrove cell, said, “Our officials, who went to the spot, found that the area came under private land. There could have been mangroves in the area but as the land is privately owned it comes under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification. Violation of this notification is not dealt with by the forest department. The revenue officials have to look into the matter.”

Prashanti Mane, tehsildar, Borivli taluka, told HT that she needed to get infor mation regarding the matter and refused to comment.

Too Much Secularism is a Dangerous Thing

By Dipankar Gupta

Is the Congress afraid of winning in Gujarat?

Nothing else explains why it lets Narendra Modi tom-tom development when it should have been the Congress banging the drums. The economic achievements of governments before Modi’s read like an award citation, but too much secularism has since led the Congress astray. Instead of showcasing its past performance to regain Gujarat, it is obsessed with nailing Modi as a communalist-in-chief. Naturally, it is not getting anywhere fast.

Look also at the good memories the Congress is erasing away.

In 1991, a full ten years before Modi arrived, as many as 17,940 out of 18,028 villages were already electrified.

Our drinking water in Mumbai is under threat due to puncture of main pipes by residents of illegal slums.

The photo above taken by our Residents Forum shows the main BMC line which was punctured by the water mafia.

The main water pipe supplying water to millions of residents, as a result of this horrible pilferage, is open to reverse contamination by sewage from nearby open air toilets in the slums.

How do we detect and confirm if there is actually fecal contamination of our water? It is actually quite easy. Human feces contain large quantities of a bacterium called E Coli. These bacteria are also known as Coliforms, and are not found anywhere else in nature. If we can detect the presence of these bacteria in water, it confirms that there is contamination of the water by feces.